Cheers mate!

Two months in Oz is nowhere near enough time to really see the place. We felt we made a good start though and were pleased to have seen a bit of Victoria, the East Coast and the Tropical North; but there’s still so much to see in this vast land full of the world’s most dangerous (and some, very weird looking) creatures. So much so infact, that we've already made notes for a future return trip to Oz. We really loved the beaches and activities in the tropics and would definitely love to come back to the Whitsundays and see Magnetic Island in the glorious sunshine (preferably on a scooter or topless buggie). We'd also love to take a trip around the outback in the West, but I think we will wait until we’ve forgotten the itchiness of the mozzie bite!

  

Things we will miss about Oz...

• The glorious sunshine and heat
• The lovely, friendly people – "how’s it going mate?" (around ever corner)
• The fantastic selection of draught beer
• The quirks, that don’t fail to make me smile – many people walk around in the streets and shops in bare feet (come rain or shine!); fresh dog food is kept in the chiller in the supermarket...next to the human food!
• The exotic wildlife and the fact you can happen across something when you least expect it – kangaroos wandering into campsites and frogs in the showers!
• The amazing palm trees, sugar cane and banana tree fields lining the highways – makes those four hour drives, much more interesting.
• The good quality pub grub (they do a mean fish & chips over here)
• And of course, the beautiful beaches

And a few things we won’t miss, so much...

• The expense of day to day essentials...and beer! 
• The mozzies
• The heat and humidity at night (sometimes made for some uncomfortable camping!) 
• The flash floods in the wet season (it was a little bit nerve racking driving at times!)

30 mozzie bites, 24 ice creams and an uncountable number of beers later and we are already looking forward to our return trip...hopefully, in the not so distant future.

We’re spending our last evening in Oz, washing clothes, repacking our backpacks and getting in a good night sleep before our early, long haul flight to our next destination – Singapore!

Aussie Road Trip Part Two – The Tropical North

What a trip. We experienced some really extreme weather – blistering sunshine and warm nights during the first few days, then slowly we encountered rainy days and nights (soggy campsites) and finally torrential rain and gale force winds! That’s what you get when you embark on a northern road trip in Oz in the wet season!

But despite the flood warnings, persistent torrential rain and winds (the rain was due to cyclone Luna, it was reported as 250km winds at some points), our hardy stationwagon made it to our final destination - Cairns, on time.
Despite not having the comfort and luxury of a campervan, the stationwagon did us well (although, we gave up on the tent in the end, as it was a bit too small and Arran’s feet stuck out!) and we were definitely thankful for it on the semi flooded roads, as it proved to be hardier and more resilient than the previous campers.
It feels like we’ve packed in so much on this road trip – we’ve visited more pristine beaches, taken in more local bands (and sampled more local beers!), encountered more of the exotic Aussie wildlife up close, and tried a bit of snorkelling...

•    Noosa
On Anne’s recommendation, we made the seaside town of Noosa our first stop. So glad we did. It was a beautiful little town, with an amazing beach full of surfers training for a big surf competition the following day. Lovely town centre full of funky restaurants and coffee shops and high end clothes shops. Amazing houses along the cliffs near the beach, which must have been worth quite a bit. Would be a great town to live in. We camped for the night in a Sea Scouts campground. It was pretty basic, but cheap and had everything we needed. The campsite was full of frogs, so we had to watch our step on our way back from the pub! It was then that we discovered that the tent was a little small....so much so, that Arran’s feet were hanging out. We decided to make the station wagon our home for the duration our trip!

•    Hervey Bay
This had to be one our favourite stops. Another beautiful seaside town, with lots of surfing and great shops. We found the perfect camp spot for the evening, at a secluded end of the beach. We spent the afternoon browsing round the shops and chilling out on the beach. I think the main beach in Hervey Bay has to be our favourite beach to date. Not only did we pretty much have the entire beach to ourselves (it was a Saturday as well), the water was so shallow, you could walk out for miles and it would still only be up to your knees. We were also paddling on the start of the Great Barrier Reef, so we spotted a few schools of fish. It was great fun. From the beach we could look over to Fraser Island. We ended the day with a couple of schooners at the Beach Hotel. This soon turned into a few more schooners, when an ageing rock band rolled up and started playing a great mix of 80s and 90s rock classics.

•    Gladstone and Rockhampton
After a late-ish start, probably on account of all the beers from the night before, we headed to our next stop – Gladstone. On the way we stopped off in a small quaint village called Gin Gin for fuel and lunch. It is one of the many towns around the North of Oz which has kept its original Aboriginal name. We arrived in Gladstone late afternoon and quickly discovered there wasn’t much too it. It was a funny town, really industrial with the main attraction being the railway station (reminded us of Kansas City!). We drove to the beach front to investigate possible campsites and were a bit disappointed. The beach was a bit dire, really muddy water and a rocky bed (no lovely white sand in sight). We felt really sorry for the people staying in the nearby holiday apartments with a 'beach view'! We decided to continue on to our next stop over – Rockhampton.

When we made it to the Rockies (as it’s known amongst the locals), we quickly discovered wild camping would be tricky (we found most of the touristy / picturesque towns have placed a ban on overnight parking and wild camping) so we checked into a campsite next to the Fitzroy River.

In the morning light we noticed a sign warning campers to beware of the crocodiles which live along the Fitzroy River (just meters from where we were camping – eeek!). Luckily, we had a very peaceful sleep.

We spent the following day exploring the Rockies (it’s based on the tropic of Capricorn, which is why the North of Oz is referred to as the tropics). We spent the day mainly in the botanic gardens, walking around the free zoo (where we met a couple of koalas, an aggressive emu, some more iguanas and a horrible little thing that looked like a cross between a lizard and a snake) and the Japanese Gardens. 

• Mackay

We then set off on our four hour drive to Mackay. It was a really lovely evening, making for a great drive and a beautiful sunset, but it was a big day of driving, so we arrived in Mackay in the dark, around 7pm. We planned to stay at Blacks Beach, but it proved a little tricky navigating in the dark (especially as the GPS insisted on taking us down a couple of dead ends). We finally arrived at the beach, half an hour later.

We woke up really early the next day (around 5.50am) to the sound of some keen joggers. So we decided to get up and check out the beach. Really pleased we did as we saw the most amazing sunrise over the Coral Sea. Blacks Beach is the longest stretch of beach in the region and its lined with 6km of tropical gardens. It was really quiet on the beach at that time in the morning, so ours were amongst the very first foot prints on the sand, which was quite cool. We watched the sunrise and walked the length of the beach, but opted against going in for an early morning swim as we spotted the warning about Box Jellyfish, the night before.

•    Airlie Beach - Whitsundays
We arrived in a very sunny Airlie Beach just after lunch. Again, as it’s in the Whitsundays (a hot tourist destination), there were many signs indicating that wild camping was forbidden. We checked with tourist information and found a really cheap campsite nearby. It was so cheap, we decided to stay in Airlie for three nights.

Unfortunately, after our first night, we didn't see the sun again until the morning we left. But the grey sky and rain didn’t put too much of a damper on things as there was so much to do in the area. We booked on to a package deal which included a day trip to part of the Great Barrier Reef (Hardy Reef) with snorkelling and a trip to Hamilton Island the next day.

•    The Great Barrier Reef
We had such an amazing couple of days in Airlie. Our trip to the reef was great fun. As the weather was a little changeable, we were warned that the water would be a little choppy on the ferry over to the reef platform. So much so, that the crew decided to hand out sea sickness tablets with the complimentary tea and coffee in the morning. It was in fact, the choppiest boat journey we had ever been on (with 2 metre high waves crashing off the sides of the boat). It made the hour boat ride quite entertaining. We were among the small number of passengers who did not use the complimentary sick bags!

 

Snorkelling in Hardy Reef was magic. As soon as you jumped off the platform you instantly spot schools of fish swimming along beside you. It was fantastic getting into the deeper parts of the reef and seeing the expanse of corals, the bright colours and clams (we saw a giant clam opening and closing!). Also spotted a huge fish near the bottom of the reef, swimming slowly past. An Australian guy pointed it out to us as a pike. It wasn’t a pike!

In the afternoon we took a semi-submersible boat around the reef for a closer look.

On the journey back to the mainland, there was more sea sickness action to keep the crew busy. Luckily, we managed to keep our sea legs and settled down to watch the in-house showing of finding nemo with a couple of beers (we did have to hold on to our cans pretty tightly though, during the extremely choppy parts of the journey).

•    Hamilton Island
We were a little dismayed to wake up to another morning of dark skies, rain and a soggy campsite, but once we arrived on Hamilton Island we soon perked up. It’s such a great place. It’s mainly a holiday resort, although there are a few houses on the island (there are only 5km of roads around the Island). Most people get around on golf buggies, which add to the holiday feel of the island. We decided against forking out $90 for a buggy and made our way round on foot. We spent our morning at the zoo, where we saw our first full sized crocodile up close (it was apparently a rogue crocodile from the Fitzroy River in Mackay – again we breathed a sigh of relief that we didn’t come across any during our overnight stay at the campsite!), a really chatty cockatoo and some more lovely wallabies and koalas.

And then we spent a very lazy afternoon in the resort pool. It had one of those pool bars, like you see in the movies, so we were hooked for the afternoon. The novelty of swimming over to the bar for drinks never wore off! (Australian money is waterproof,  which was handy).

We spent our last night in Airlie in the local backpackers’ pub, taking in a couple of bands and a few schooners.

•    Townsville
We arrived in a very rainy Townsville around 3pm the following day. The rain was so bad, we decided against attempting to sleep in the car overnight, so we checked into a local B&B. It was a great little B&B, really quaint with lots of vintage pictures and furnishings. The owner, John, was a really smiley, friendly chap (like most of the Aussies we’ve encountered) and didn’t take any money from us until we decided how long we wanted to stay. He knew the weather was bad and that we trying to make it to Cairns, so I think he took pity on us a little!
The rain hadn’t let up in the morning (I think it rained all night), so we decided to stay another night. John seemed happy about this and thought it was a wise decision. He said he’d keep an ear out on the traffic weather/news for us, which was really helpful.
Despite the weather we decided to head out for the day. We had read about Magnetic Island before we arrived and were keen to visit it. We took the ferry over from the mainland and arrived half an hour later. Unfortuantley, Magnetic Island is really not a place you can see on foot. It’s best to see it by car (which you have to hire on the Island, you can't take your car over) or by bus, but the buses were few and far between. We had originally intended to hire bikes, but when we arrived, we realised the company we had intended to hire with, no longer existed and the rain was that heavy anyway, it wouldn’t have been much fun.

Still, we managed to see a bit of the Island by foot. We made it to one of the many bays (there's about seven) called Picnic Bay and decided to stop there for lunch. It was about this time that the torrential rain decided to start up again, so we jumped on a local bus back to towards the ferry. We stopped off at one of the few bars on the Island, Base, which is also a backpackers. It looks like an amazing place to stay. It was right on the beach and all the rooms/dorms were along the beachfront in little beach huts (must be amazing in the dry summer months!).
We decided to stay in Base for the rest of the afternoon, as it was St Patricks Day and the green beer was flowing and the live music was playing all day.
We later read that Magnetic Island is rather unique, as it is first and foremost a protected national park (home to lots of koalas, kangaroo rats and wombats), with only a small number of people actually residing on the Island. This explains why it’s so sparse and difficult to get around on foot.
Still, we had a great time and marked it down as a place to visit in the future...during the dry season!

•    Cairns
John, informed us at breakfast that the road South of Cairns was closed. Luckily he mentioned that the road North was passable with care and said he’d keep a listen out in case he heard anything else before we left. We were a little nervous as we knew we not only had to hand the car back the next day (Monday) we also had an early morning flight departing from Cairns on the Tuesday. John mentioned that last year, during the floods, the rain lasted for two months straight. We started to worry a bit more about our flight and decided to leave quite quickly after breaky.
The drive for the first hour or so was fine. Light rain, but clear roads. After this, we experienced a few rather nerve racking spells of torrential rain which lasted around half an hour each time. After a slow drive and a few stops at roadside cafes (to sit out the rain!), we eventually made it to a rainy Cairns just after lunch.
We checked into our hostel, aptly named Shenannigans, and found that it was actually part of a big Irish Pub. I think it was the first time we’ve ever signed an agreement during check-in stating that we cannot complain about the noise from the pub or receive a refund if we decide to leave because of it. We didn’t mind though, after a nerve racking journey and the fear of not making it to Cairns in time for our flight, we would have slept in a booth in the pub if necessary! And on the brightside, we were given a whole load of bar vouchers to use during our stay!

Time out in Ballina

After Brisbane, we headed over to Ballina, a seaside town, a couple of hours south of Brisbane (and it’s apparently twinned with County Mayo in Ireland). One of Arran’s relatives, Anne, kindly put us up in her motel for a couple of weeks (thanks again Anne!).

Ballina is a great little place. Lots of great pubs with local live bands playing most nights, funky coffee shops and great surfy chic clothes shops; but I think the best bit has to be beaches! Three huge, silver sand beaches, within walking distance of the town centre. It was on the beaches, we spotted some more of the unique Aussie wildlife!
 

We spent most our time in Ballina chilling out on the beach, as well as researching and preparing for our next two big journeys – our second Aussie road trip and our South East Asia trip at the end of the month.  

Our main Ballina highlights include:
•    Idling the days away on one of the lovely beaches.
•    Seeing a couple of great acoustic sets in the local pub.

•    A night out on the town with Anne.

•    Shopping – really loved the surf shops!
•    A great day trip (so warm!) to Byron Bay.
•    Visiting the local cinema twice, for less than the price back home!
•    And...having some home cooked food again (thanks Anne!)

We’ve now started part two of our Aussie road trip (Brisbane to Cairns), this time without the luxury of a comfy campervan; we have decided to rough it with a car and tent.

Oz Road Trip Video - Part One

We've put together another video compilation, this time of our Australian road trip. Have a look.

YouTube Link

Short break in Brisbane

After our time on the road it was good to stay in one place for a little while and sleep in a proper bed!

When we arrived in Brisbane on Thursday, it was really drizzly, but we were optimistic it would pick up...it never did. It rained constantly until Sunday morning when we left! It was still warm and the hostel was really nice, so we just used the down time to chill out.

We did, however, have one key task during out time in the city – to buy a new camera. Unfortunately, during the excitement of arriving at the hostel, Emily dropped our camera into a gushing puddle. We left it to dry out for a few days, but alas it was goner (this explains the gap in our album during our time in Brisbane).

The area we stayed in, Caxton,  seemed to have quite a history to it. It housed some of Brisbane's oldest hotels and now seemed to be the place to be for independent pubs and restaurants and apparently the main hang out during rugby league games. The Caxton area really felt like San Francisco with the long hilly roads and colonial buildings. We felt quite at home in the neighbourhood straight away.

On our first night in the city, we went to one of the local bars to watch a couple bands. We didn’t realise until we got there that the gigs were actually in aid of SLAM (Supporters of Live Australia’s Music). Back in 2010, on 23 February, a band took to the road on the back of an open lorry and toured round Melbourne in protest of the strict licensing laws in Victoria, which are apparently due to the thought that live music in pubs is linked to violence. It was a great gig and a really funky little Mexican pub.

The hostel itself was actually an old colonial house. We stayed at the back of the main house in the pool house, with 6 others. It’s probably one of the nicest hostels we’ve stayed in to date and by far, the most homely.

Brisbane seems like a nice little city, i’m not sure we’ve seen it at its best due to the rain, but on first impressions, it didn’t really feel like that there was much for tourists to do. It felt kind of similar to Aberdeen in that respect – nice little city to visit for shopping, pubs / restaurants and the botanic gardens, but not much else to see. Still, we really enjoyed the rest and the ability to shower daily!

Main highlights from Brisbane would be...
•    Seeing the Iron Lady in a small boutique cinema close to our hostel – great film.
•    Visiting the man made beach.
•    Buying a new camera - which should hopefully take better night time shots.
•    The Calypso Bar – just sitting with a couple of schooners and watching the live music.

The Aussie Road Trip – Part 1

Although this time, we were driving on the proper side of the road and had a normal gearstick camper, there were a few funny things about driving in Oz – the signs on the main roads and motorways were warning you too look out for koalas and kangaroos (apparently you’re more likely to hit one of them at dusk or dawn). Roundabouts are a fairly new feature to Oz so some drivers are still nervous about using them, which makes for fun! It’s so warm, you have to keep your window closed and the air conditioning on full blast - never before, have I had to close a window to keep the warm air out!

Despite these differences, we successfully travelled around the East Coast in our usual garish campervan style (trying hard to blend in with the locals in car parks). We had a fantastic time and stayed at some great campsites, had some lovely food, visited lots of pristine postcard beaches and saw a large variety of beasties...

•    Gosford
First night in the camper, we camped by the beach in a small town called Gosford (50km North of Sydney). Really lovely little costal town, similar to Inverness back home and the first place we’ve come across that actually sells disposable BBQs, so we stocked up! (We were starting to worry that disposable BBQs didn’t exist in Oz).

•    Forster

The drive to Forster was beautiful. The closer we got, the more lovely stop offs points/vistas there were which lead to beautiful lakes and small beaches. Forster is the home to the Wallis lakes. This was the first place we came across that had shark & jelly fish nets on the beach. We liked the little beach town so much, we stayed for two nights in a local campground. Campsites in Oz are amazingly equipped; most have a couple of outdoor pools, electric BBQs and huge outdoor camp kitchens.  We had our first couple of Aussie BBQs in the campground. We spent most of our time at the main beach and neighbouring outdoor swimming pool – great place!

This was also the first place on our camping trip that we felt the full force of the pesky mosquitoes. We had to do a thorough mozzie check in the camper, before settling down for the night!

•    South West Rocks
On our way to South West Rocks we stopped in a small town called Port Macquarie. Another seaside town with an amazing beach! We reached South West Rocks by late afternoon and stocked up on some supplies in the local shop. We were a bit worried that the town looked a bit too residential with not much going (or a discrete place to camp), but on the way to our planned camp spot (along a street not too dissimilar to Ramsay Street) we saw....a kangaroo standing in someone’s garden.

We slowed down to take photos. A passing local mentioned that most of the kangaroos graze in the early evening in a spot of land next to the local pub. We headed down and found a perfect camp spot next to the water, just down from the marina and local pub (and just across the road from around 15 roo’s). It was fantastic seeing the kangaroos close up (and a baby joey in its mum’s pouch!). Very funny creatures – completely undaunted by the noise of the passing traffic and pub, but watch you very closely if you walk past (like meercats, but when standing straight, they were closer to Arran’s height!).

We also realised that we were now completely out of the hazardous area of the dastardly funnel web spider (it has a 90 miles radius around Sydney) – phew!

•    Coffs Harbour

On our way to Coffs Harbour we realised how much the Aussies invest in re-development on the roads. Some roads we travelled on were so new our GPS didn’t recognise them (which made for some fun re-routing!). Another, lovely seaside town. We spent our time chilling out on the beach. At 3pm on a Friday afternoon, we nearly had the whole of the main beach to ourselves! We ended the evening in the main local pub. We originally intended to stay only for a couple of schooners, but a meat raffle was taking place (meat platter raffles are really popular in Oz, we’d seen lots of posters but never been to one) so we thought we’d stay. We didn’t win, but decided to stay and take in a local band.

•    Yamba

On the way to Yamba we passed through a small town called Maclean. We stopped off and noticed that the small town had a lot of Scottish influences – The Argyll hotel pub, Scottish Corner Butchers and nearly every telegraph pole was painted a different tartan! Apparently, after the clearances a lot of Scots relocated to this area. It’s also meant to be twined with Portree in Skye. 

Yamaba was a lovely town – according to it’s sign it won Australia’s best small town last year. This made it a little bit difficult for wild camping. Nearly every spot had a sign up preventing overnight parking/camping (not really surprising given the fancy beach side apartments and houses), so we checked into a campsite for the night. The town centre was small but funky and just as immaculate as the beach, with rows of surfer shops, vintage shops, diners and cafe bars. After a camp stove dinner we walked along to a nearby beach along the pier, where we spotted a couple of iguanas hanging out! (We also spotted a small gecko running along the wall in the campsite kitchen).

•    Byron Bay 
We woke up to the smell of a full English breakfast cooking. It turned out that nearly all the Aussies in the campsite were cooking this on their fancy portable BBQs (the gear they take camping is incredible, must take some of them ages to get settled). We settled for some tasty pancakes on our campstove.

On our way to Byron Bay we drove past quite a few signs warning of the flooding from the weeks before. Some of the small rivers we drove past still appeared a bit overflown but we didn’t ever have to engage our dingy. Arrived in Byron Bay and realised (like the campervan folk warned, "there’s nowhere to wild camp in Byron Bay!"). It’s a very touristy town and attracts a lot of surfers. So we checked into a campsite. We spent the morning on the first of three beaches in the Bay – Tallow Beach. Fantastically pristine beach, with some of the hottest sand we’ve walked on (and the warmest water we’ve swam in). The public toilets in Oz are always quite interesting, especially if they are close to the water. I found a massive, thick legged spider in the sink of mine (luckily it was dead!) and Arran found a live frog living in the toilet bowl of his! We spent the evening in town. Really lovely town, with such a cool atmosphere. We went to the main beach at dusk and the beach front was filled with people just chilling out and taking in the view. We ended the night in the Beach Hotel – a massive outdoor bar with good tunes and food.

•    Gold Coast

We stayed in two great campsites while in the Gold Coast as apparently wild camping / sleeping in your camper in public places is completely banned throughout the city – which we found out half way through the night. We had three fun days in the city, chilling out on more beaches (Surfers Paradise) and visiting a couple of the big theme parks – Marine World and Movie World.

As well as going on some terrifying rollarcoasters in marine world (the jet ski ride was the worst!), we saw some massive sharks, cheeky dolphins and hi-fived some baby stingrays.

Movie World was great fun too, with even more terrifying rollarcoasters – the superman one in particular – it had an extreme vertical drop! In fact, the ride was so fast, at 4.2 positive gforce and 1 negative gforce, that my contact lense popped out even though I pretty much had my eyes closed the whole way! The stunt car show was good fun too. We ended the afternoon with the Callaghan Combo and a few schooners in the Dirty Harry Bar.

We came to the end of our East Coast road trip on Thursday when we arrived into a very drizzly Brisbane. 

We’re already looking forward to the road trip part two, when we head up to Cairns, in a couple of weeks time.

Last week in Sydney...so long and thanks for having us!

We packed up our rucksacks today and said goodbye to Laura and Katie - next time we'll see those guys will be back home in sunny Scotland! We then headed downtown to pick up our campervan.
After figuring out how to pay for the toll roads (everything is done electronically here, so you have to register a credit card and your vehicle. Your card then gets charged automatically each time you pass over a toll road, which is handy) and stocking up on some camping food, we hit the road. We arrived in the small town of Gosford (50 miles North of Sydney) just in time for lunch.
Sydney has been a blast - it’s such a beautiful city with lots of great sights, but the highlight has definitely been hanging out with some friendly, familiar faces!
 
During our final week our best bits have been:

o    Visiting the Chinese Garden of Friendship – a garden right in the hub of the city near Darling Harbour. Really peaceful spot with the most the impressive bonsai trees.

o    Spending the afternoon in Watsons Bay – we took a short ferry ride over to the bay. Beautiful part of Sydney, with lots of great walks. The main attraction is a cliff face called The Gap – a dramatic looking cliff that was meant to have inspired Alfred Hitchcock when he visited in the 1960s. Great chip shop on the Wharf too!

o    Swimming in the outdoor pool at Luna Park – a really lovely outdoor pool; it’s an amazing experience, to be swimming along while watching a train pass over Sydney Harbour Bridge! Fantastic views of the city to swim by.

o    Watching the new Sherlock Holmes movie at the Moonlight Cinema – based in Centennial Park, the outdoor cinema is set up over the summer months. It was a great atmosphere and BYO food and drink was encouraged, so it felt similar to T in the Park (the toilets were a far sight better though!). Pretty magical experience - watching a movie with the sound of the crickets in the background and flying foxes overhead.

o    Celebrating Laura’s birthday – so pleased we were in Sydney for Laura’s birthday weekend, lots of good food and wine (thanks Katie!).

o    And finally, Katie’s Leek and Chicken Pie – Katie it was one of the best pie’s we’ve ever tasted, we seriously think you should consider a career at Pie Face!

Thanks again to Laura and Katie for letting us stay with them for four weeks, it’s been an amazing help to our travel budget and a great laugh!

Now in Gosford, we plan to spend the day exploring the town before finding a good site to set up camp for the evening.

Week Three in Sydney...the great outdoors

We had a great week, last week, as well as exploring a bit more of the city, we managed to firm up the arrangements for the next part of trip - not long before we pick up our new set of wheels and hit the road again!

We spent Monday booking our campervan for our east coast trip. It’s similar in size to our last camper, but newer and more reliable (so we are pretty confident this camper will not breakdown). We pick up our camper next Monday. Really looking forward to camping again, seeing the beautiful east coast...and having a few BBQs on the beach!
Last week, we spent most of our time outside enjoying the lovely weather. Monday was Sydney’s hottest day so far this summer at a sweltering 36 degrees!

o    Centennial Park
In the funky Surrey Hills part of town, there’s a huge park called Centennial Park. The park houses the Moonlight Cinema, an outdoor cinema screen set up in the park over the summer months. We picked up tickets to see Sherlock Holmes 2 on Friday night. We spent most of Tuesday just chilling out in the park, before grabbing some dinner and a couple of schooners in a pub nearby.

o    Shopping in outdoor mile in Sydney
Thankfully all the outdoor stores are located on the same street. We discovered this street on Wednesday and spent the afternoon stocking up on essentials for our campervan. I also bought a really good pair of walking boots; essential for the last part of trip when we go walking in South East Asia. We spent the morning in the historic Paddy’s Market, a huge indoor market with lots of stalls and the best value fresh fruit and veg we’ve found so far. Sydney is pretty expensive for most things, but out of season fruit and veg is particularly pricey (a bunch of bananas might cost you $12!), so Paddy’s Market is really handy for cheap supplies!

o    Blue Mountains
On Saturday, we hired a car and headed out of town to an area called the Blue Mountains with Laura and Katie. The Mountains are part of a large National Park. We were very lucky with the weather as it had been raining constantly the day before. When we arrived the mist had lifted and the sun was out, it was perfect. We bought a pass to explore the mountain range on the various transport modes – the world’s steepest railway took us down the rainforest track (the train was more like a rollercoaster but without any safety belts. It was a bit of a shock as we plummeted 200 metres into darkness, before reaching the bottom of the cliff! The Indian Jones tune should have been a sign that this was no ordinary train! We took the cable car back up for views of Solitary Mountain, the Orphan Rock and the Three Sisters (three single rock formations) before catching the Skywalk over to the Katoomba waterfall and the Three Sisters walkway. We finished the afternoon off in the local village, with a drink in the local pub, listening to ukuleles! (the ukulele festival was on - how could I forget!).

o    Dragon Boat Race
Sunday was probably just as hot as as Monday, so we were pleased we got our hike around the Blue Mountains out of the way on Saturday! We headed to the harbour in the afternoon to watch the Dragon Boat Races. It’s part of the Chinese New Year Festival and is an annual tradition. We spent the afternoon watching the rest of the races with some cold drinks under the much needed shade of a parasol!

This week is our last week in Sydney and it will be pretty busy as we try to fit in the last few attractions and activities we have planned.

Week two in Sydney – Don’t Rain on our Parades!

Experienced some more temperamental Australian weather last week. Apparently it’s been the worst summer in Sydney for over 50 years. It’s not like Scotland though. Although it rains now and again (mostly intermittent showers, occasionally it can be the ‘take cover’ torrential rain), it doesn’t last long and it’s been so hot recently, you actually welcome it. It did mean, however, that we postponed our out of town trip to the Blue Mountains to next weekend instead. Fingers crossed next Saturday will be lovely and sunny, with beautiful blue clear skies!

Despite the unpredictable weather, we still managed to get up to a lot of fun things last week....

•    Australia Day
Thursday marked Australia Day, a national public holiday. The city was packed with people (a lot were kitted with full outfits donning the Aussie flag) and the pubs were even busier. We spent most of the afternoon in The Rocks (a small historic part of Sydney near the harbour. The cobbled streets give it a real Edinburgh feel), with three stages of live music and lots of stalls. After deciding the Harbour Stage had the best mix of music, we settled there for a while and watched a couple of bands. We ended the day in Darling Harbour, where we joined the masses to watch the boat parade and fireworks.

 
•    Surrey Hills
A really funky part of Sydney; all the streets are named after English streets, such as Oxford St and Crown St and they are packed with interesting restaurants, bars and independent clothes shops. We only really went to the area to use the internet at the public library, but we plan on going back next week to try out some of the bars.

•    Gallery of New South Wales
There’s lots of interesting museums in Sydney, unfortunately the majority are quite expensive, but there are a couple of gems that are free. We spent Sunday afternoon in the Gallery of New South Wales. Amazing building, great contemporary art exhibits and...free Wi-Fi.

•    Chinese Twilight Parade
The Chinese New Year Festival is currently in full swing in Sydney, with lots of events on over the next couple of weeks. Really glad we are in Sydney to experience this. Last night we attended the twilight parade – a parade spanning a couple of miles along the main street, from the town hall to Chinatown. We managed to get a good spot to watch the parade (although, there did seem to an unusually high number of trams going past to block our view every now and then!). It was great seeing the masses of dragons (2012 is the year of the dragon), floats and dancers. Although, I think the best part would have to be the mini panda parade (a mass of children dressed up in panda costumes!).

Today seems to be one of the hottest days in Sydney so far (and there’s no sign of rain), so it seems a pity to waste it in the library. Off to find a beer garden for a couple of schooners (small pints) in the sunshine. 

First week in Sydney...

And I never thought I’d have to put suntan lotion on my toes!

Really enjoying Sydney (and the fantastic sunny weather) but there is a couple of downsides to the beautiful city. Firstly, free Wi-Fi is nearly non-existent (hence the huge gap since our last blog posting) and secondly, it’s a very expensive place (especially in comparison to the States) e.g. pints are around $5/6 and everyday essentials like bottled water are around $3.

We had originally intended to stay in Sydney for around 2.5 months to make use of our working visas, but after looking into apartment rental and hostel prices we decided to cut our stay short, to just one month. Luckily, our friends Laura and Katie (who arrived in Sydney last year and are set up with jobs and  a nice apartment) offered to let us stay at their apartment while we are here, which is an amazing help to our travel budget – thanks guys!

Sydney is a great city, there’s so much to do and there seems to be a different festival or event on every weekend. So far we have...

• Watched live music in the Domain during the Sydney Festival. Was all going well until the torrential rain hit and the whole crowd had to run to the subway station (the only bad weather we’ve experience in Sydney so far).

• Chilled out in Hyde Park. Named after the park in London; it’s a mini replica.

• Walked over Sydney Bridge in the blistering sunshine. Not quite the same as walking over the Forth Road Bridge or Brooklyn Bridge, as the walkway fence is extremely high and covered in mesh and barbed wire! But you can still get some good photos through the slight gap and the views were still good.

• Visited the Botanic Gardens in the Domain. Amazing place, with flying foxes nesting in most of the trees – We’ve never seen such big bats!

But I think our main highlight so far, was riding the ferries over to Cockatoo Island and Manly beach, last weekend.

Cockatoo Island (a former prison, school and shipyard) is a historical site with regular art shows and events. We spent a good few hours walking around the small island and taking in the exhibits. We had a quick drink in the Island Bar, before catching our next ferry.

Manly beach is a lovely bay in Sydney Harbour; lots of funky restaurants and bars and surfer chic shops. We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out on the beach with a couple of beers, watching the surf! Ended the day with fish and chips in the pub overlooking the beach.

Looking forward to celebrating Australia day this Thursday (a national public holiday) and heading to the harbour to watch the ferry races and taking in a band or two.